Literary Criticism
The Legends of Genesis
The Legends of Genesis is the English translation of the introduction to Gunkel’s massive commentary, Genesis. Gunkel uses form critical ana…
The Reverberator
Another Jamesian look at Americans in Paris. What happens when a reporter for an American scandal sheet (The Reverberator) is looking for a …
White Rose of Weary Leaf
Isobel Violet Hunt was a British author renowned for her literary salons, which hosted such notables as H.G. Wells, D.H. Laurence, Henry Jam…
The Country of the Pointed Firs
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett’s finest work, described by Henry James as her “beautiful little quantum of achi…
The Birthplace
Neither the name of Shakespeare nor that of Stratford appears directly in this short piece by James, and yet both are absolutely central to …
The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter
As much as any other work of literature, Henri Murger’s 1851 collection of witty sketches Scènes de la vie de bohème shaped th…
Art and Morality
“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?”“We are dom…
The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880-1881 …
Maria Chapdelaine
The novel Maria Chapdelaine portrays life in rural Quebec at the beginning of the 20th century. Published first in French in 1913, it is a f…
Siddhartha
A major preoccupation of Hesse in writing Siddhartha was to cure his "sickness with life" (Lebenskrankheit) by immersing himself i…
William, An Englishman
William – an Englishman is a 1919 novel by Cicely Hamilton. The novel explores the effect of the First World War on a married couple during …
Bunyan Characters
Bunyan Characters by Alexander Whyte delves into the rich tapestry of characters from John Bunyan's seminal work, The Pilgrim's Progress. Th…
Tales From Dickens
Tales From Dickens offers a unique opportunity to explore the essence of Charles Dickens' most cherished works through the lens of Hallie Er…
The American Language
"It was part of my daily work, for a good many years, to read the principal English newspapers and reviews; it has been part of my work…
Christmas Stories
Twenty stories originally published in the Christmas editions of the magazines “Household Words” and “All The Year Round”. Some of the stori…
The Emperor of Portugallia
Selma Lagerlöf was born in Vaermland, Sweden, in 1858 and enjoyed a long and very successful career as a writer, receiving the Nobel-Pr…
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in…
The Awkward Age
Nanda Brookenham is coming of age, and thus 'coming out' in London society - which leads to complications in her family's social set in Lond…
Father Goriot
One of Balzac's most popular works, set around 1815 during the re-ascendancy of the Bourbon kings following the defeat of Napoleon. Said to …
Better Angel
In 1933, Forman Brown wrote, under the pseudonym Richard Meeker, a controversial novel called Better Angel, about a young man coming to term…